Background & Goals

Robert Alperin, founder of EIR, had developed an in-house tool to help manage keyword phrases and ad groups for search marketing campaigns. The tool was based on manipulating bids on long-tail keyword phrases using mathematical algorithms. According to Alperin, “We thought manipulating bids on the long-tail keyword phrases was the secret sauce, but what we really needed was a rule-based tool to help organize our keyword groups.”

EIR's team set out to find a solution to help them to build their keyword list and organize ad groups more efficiently, so they would have more time to grow the business while managing the campaigns of multiple clients.

Challenges

EIR was quickly growing its client base and needed to leverage technology in order to more efficiently manage each account. In managing multiple campaigns, the process for setup and maintenance was extremely time-consuming. Since the need for continuous iterations and fine-tuning of each campaign required a tremendous amount of the account management team's time, there was very little time available for evaluating and pursuing new client prospects. This made the sales pipeline unpredictable, and it was difficult for the business development team to provide accurate forecasts to senior management.

EIR trialed various PPC tools, but they did not see an improvement in their campaign results. Alperin explained, “Many of the off-the-shelf tools available to agencies work with short-hand keyword phrases and offer less than a few thousand keywords at best.”

Instead, EIR needed a solution that identified long-tail keyword phrases and helped to organize them into tightly related ad groups. As WordStream account manager Robert Stanley explained, “Long-tail search terms are typically a fraction of the cost of short-tail search terms in a pay-per-click campaign and provide a higher return on investment.” EIR recognized the need to include more long-tail keyword phrases in their campaigns because they represent searches conducted by more qualified prospects. These leads know exactly what they want and are more likely to convert to sales as compared to less specific search queries that can often lead to worthless clicks if not monitored carefully.

EIR also concluded that most tools available to agencies were bid-centric. Alperin added, “Bidding-centric tools will identify the top handful of key phrases with the most positive ROI and filter out the rest. Initially clients are satisfied with this but the campaign inevitably plateaus and starts to produce mediocre results.”

Wanting much more than just a generic keyword or bid management tool, Alperin and his team turned to WordStream.

Keyword Grouping & Organization: Critical for Long-Term PPC Success

One of the first things about the WordStream PPC solution that immediately impressed Alperin was the keyword organization and segmentation features. EIR was able to take the key phrases from clients’ Google accounts, ranging from a few thousand to 10,000 keyword phrases, and very easily upload, organize, and segment those lists into smaller, tightly related ad groups.

To accomplish this level of segmentation manually across multiple client accounts would have taken EIR up to five times as long. For example, one client went from 500 keyword phrases to 4,000 keyword phrases in just a few short weeks after implementing WordStream’s software.

Once the keywords were segmented by ad group, the WordStream solution made it simple for EIR to write text ads by offering suggestions of the most relevant, traffic-driving keywords from each ad group. This allowed EIR to create tightly aligned groups and ad text, which in turn helped to improve Google Quality Scores. WordStream’s PPC ad tools also improved the team's productivity. EIR can now create multiple, unique text ads for 400 ad groups in just one to two weeks.

PPC as a Continuous & Iterative Process

Once they had segmented keyword phrases and created text ads as part of the initial setup, the EIR team was able to move to the maintenance phase of campaign development. Recognizing the importance of continually fine-tuning PPC campaigns from month to month, EIR focused on expansion, discovery and other improvements to their campaigns as a next step. This portion of PPC management was often the most difficult for EIR, as it could be tedious and time-consuming and prevented the account team from spending time on prospecting for new business.

Instead of manually expanding each client account, EIR used WordStream’s keyword discovery tools to continuously uncover new, high-quality keywords via the website's analytics—including the highly advantageous long-tail keyword phrases that real prospects use to find the site. Before leveraging WordStream, it was difficult to find the time to add thousands of keywords and group them accordingly. WordStream's rule-based organization tools freed up the team's time to spend on more complex revenue-generating tasks.

According to Alperin, “By focusing on the long-tail, we are able to take small to mid-size PPC campaigns that haven’t reached their peak and turn them into large-scale, long-tail, highly effective, measurable and continuously improving PPC campaigns. Clients are finally able to achieve the benefits that they have been envisioning.”

WordStream allowed EIR to more effectively manage their clients’ accounts while investing only a quarter of the time. Stanley concluded, “Search marketers should focus time on adding value, not on repetitive and mindless tasks.”

Results

Almost immediately, EIR saw the value in using WordStream across all of its client accounts. EIR saw their clients’ impressions, click-through rates (CTR), and conversion rates increase while the cost of acquisitions decreased. PPC metrics improved across the board, by a varying level across accounts.

As one client commented, “Executive Internet Resources has been instrumental in helping our organization accelerate its growth. We realized a 290% increase in PPC lead generation in just two months.”

EIR noted that another successful client was previously getting 50 leads per week for $155/lead. Within 60 days of using WordStream for campaign management, the client was obtaining 250 leads per week at half the cost.

Alperin also noted that his team is two to five times more efficient with the use of their time. Due to this, EIR has built the capacity to take on additional clients. The team can now spend one to two weeks to get a campaign up and running with 5,000 to 10,000 keyword phrases and 400 ad groups, all with unique text ads. The time savings and ability to create a better campaign from the start has given the agency more time to go out and get business that they can quickly and efficiently deliver on.

Prior to using WordStream, EIR had a disjointed pipeline and found it difficult to scale business. The company constantly ran through a cycle of winning new business, delivering on the service, and then rushing out to win new business again. With the efficiency gained by using WordStream, EIR’s business development team was able to seek out more business opportunities and ensure a more predictable pipeline.

Finally, EIR experienced measurable and positive ROI that continued to improve monthly, rather than simply peak and plateau, across all of its client accounts. All of the firm's clients gained well-defined, targeted, large-scale, low cost-per-click campaigns.

Alperin concluded, ”WordStream allows you to create a campaign in an efficient, precise way. It’s a simpler, cleaner, lighter approach to managing a campaign. It is a wonderfully full-featured tool for any pay-per-click agency or any AdWords Consultant.”

About WordStream

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